Senegal arrests three suspected foreign jihadists

DAKAR (Reuters) - Senegalese police said on Tuesday that they had arrested three suspected foreign jihadists in the capital Dakar, the second such series of arrests this year.

Two Moroccans were taken into custody on March 29 for alleged ties to Islamic State, the police said in a statement, while a Nigerian was arrested on April 1 as he left the Nigerian embassy, on suspicion of recruiting for Boko Haram.

The Nigerian had recently arrived in Senegal after two months in neighboring Mauritania, the statement said. It added that the men, whose names were not provided, were being detained while a prosecutor examines the evidence against them.

Authorities arrested two suspected jihadists from Mali and Mauritania in February. Police said the Malian had been in contact with the mastermind of an attack on an Ivory Coast hotel last year that killed 18 people.

The attack was one of several in the region viewed as targeting France and its allies, including Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, after Paris intervened militarily in Mali in 2013 to drive out al Qaeda-linked militants who had seized the desert north a year earlier.

Senegal has thus far been spared jihadi attacks like those that frequently plague its eastern neighbor Mali, but authorities are on high alert.